Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor; but not one, he
says, that he thought fit for me, and which, at the same time, answered
my description.
He has been very solicitous to keep to the letter of my instructions:
which looked well: and the better I like him, as, although he proposed
that town, he came back, dissuading me from it: for he said, that, in
his journey from thence, he had thought Windsor, although of his own
proposal, a wrong choice; because I coveted privacy, and that was a
place generally visited and admired.*
* This inference of the Lady in his favour is exactly what he had hoped
for. See Letter XXV. of this volume.
I told him, that if Mrs. Sorlings thought me not an incumbrance, I would
be willing to stay here a little longer; provided he would leave me, and
go to Lord M.'s, or to London, which ever he thought best.
He hoped, he said, that he might suppose me absolutely safe from the
insults or attempts of my brother; and, therefore, if it should make me
easier, he would obey, for a few days at least.
He again proposed to send for Hannah. I told him I designed to do
so, through you--And shall I beg of you, my dear, to cause the honest
creature to be sent to? Your faithful Robert, I think, knows where
she is. Perhaps she will be permitted to quit her place directly, by
allowing a month's wages, which I will repay her. He took notice of the
serious humour he found me in, and of the redness of my eyes. I had just
been answering your letter; and had he not approached me, on his
coming off his journey, in a very respectful manner; had he not made an
unexceptionable report of his inquiries, and been so ready to go from
me, at the very first word; I was prepared (notwithstanding the good
terms we parted upon when he set out for Windsor) to have given him a
very unwelcome reception: for the contents of your last letter had so
affected me, that the moment I saw him, I beheld with indignation the
seducer, who had been the cause of all the evils I suffer, and have
suffered.
He hinted to me, that he had received a letter from Lady Betty, and
another (as I understood him) from one of the Miss Montagues. If they
take notice of me in them, I wonder that he did not acquaint me with the
contents. I am afraid, my dear, that his relations are among those who
think I have taken a rash and inexcusable step. It is not to my credit
to let even them know how I have been frighted out of myself: and yet
perhaps they would hold me unworthy of their alliance, if they were to
think my flight a voluntary one. O my dear, how uneasy to us are our
reflections upon every doubtful occurrence, when we know we have been
prevailed upon to do a wrong thing!